What Are the Requirements to Be a Daycare Teacher in South Dakota?

South Dakota licenses day care centers — programs the statute defines as caring for 21 or more children, counting children under six living in the home — through the South Dakota Department of Social Services (DSS), Division of Child Care Services and its Office of Licensing and Accreditation.

The rules teachers follow sit in one consolidated licensing chapter, ARSD 67:42:17, which took effect July 3, 2023.

When a requirement on this page and the current rulebook disagree, the rulebook governs, so confirm details with DSS before you rely on them.

The South Dakota center rule writes its classroom standard for one role: the provider, its word for the person giving direct care to children.

This page uses lead teacher for that provider role.

A provider must be at least 18 years old.

Beyond that age floor the rule sets no education requirement for providers — no degree and no CDA.

What it asks instead is that a provider demonstrate and maintain the ability to provide care that attends to children's physical growth and development.

Individual employers may still set hiring preferences of their own, so read each job posting closely.

South Dakota writes a separate, younger floor for the provider's assistant: an assistant must be at least 14 years old.

The guardrails do the work.

An assistant may not be left alone with children in care, and an assistant counts in staff-child ratios only under the direct supervision of a provider or the director.

The background-check rule reaches program employees age 14 and older, so a 14-year-old assistant is covered by the same check as the rest of the staff.

South Dakota folds pre-service training into a required orientation.

Within 90 days of the date of employment, every provider must complete orientation training in 13 areas — the rule's list includes infectious disease control, safe sleep, medication, allergies, abusive head trauma, emergency preparedness, child abuse reporting, pediatric first aid and CPR, and child development.

Infant and toddler teachers should note two items on that list: safe sleep and abusive head trauma.

The 90-day deadline has a second, stricter edge: orientation must be complete before you care for children unsupervised, so a new teacher works under supervision until the training is documented.

Each director and each provider counted in staff-child ratios at a center or school-age program completes 10 hours of training every year.

Two details matter.

First, the requirement is written for directors and providers who are counted in staff-child ratios.

Second, CPR renewal does not count toward the 10 hours, so keeping certifications current sits on top of annual training rather than inside it.

Every provider must be certified in pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the certification must include a hands-on skills test.

Pediatric first aid runs on a five-year cycle: the rule requires providers to complete pediatric first aid every five years.

On health checks, our research did not confirm a physical exam, tuberculosis test or immunization requirement for center staff in the rules we read — ask DSS's Division of Child Care Services or the hiring center what health documentation they require.

South Dakota runs the federal CCDBG background-check floor through its licensing chapter.

The checks cover all providers, program employees age 14 and older and family day care household members age 18 and older, and a background check is required at least once every five years, so the check repeats through a career rather than happening once at hire.

The process, as DSS's licensing handbook describes it, starts with fingerprinting — live scan preferred, ink cards accepted — and adults who lived outside South Dakota in the past five years also complete out-of-state criminal history and central registry forms.

Beyond the licensing floor, South Dakota runs Pathways to Professional Development, the state's career lattice for people who work with children from birth through age 12.

Pathways recognizes people for their education and training in that work.

It is not one of the licensing requirements on this page; treat it as recognition of professional growth, not a licensing step.